


Muffled Screams

by HotGoatCheese



Series: Whumptober 2019 [18]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Nightmares, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 14:17:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21254729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HotGoatCheese/pseuds/HotGoatCheese
Summary: Dipper is still having nightmares every night, but that doesn't have to ruin Mabel's life too.





	Muffled Screams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InternetCannibal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InternetCannibal/gifts).

It didn't matter what he was saying. It never mattered what he was saying. It was just that voice. High, grating, almost electronically reverberating through Dipper's skull. Mocking him, mocking Ford, it didn't matter, offering a deal that would inevitably go bad. 

The twisting in his gut when he took the hand that wasn't a hand. The tingle of the flesh that wasn't flesh pressing into his palm, just the inherent wrongness of Bill's entire being...

Watching his own eyes light up that sickly yellow, realizing no one else had even noticed anything was even wrong with him despite the fact that something inherently wrong to the very core of its being was controlling him...

The nightmares were different every night, but they were always about him. For all the strange things in Gravity Falls, all the times Dipper had thought he might die, Bill was the only true horror. Even long after he was dead, it was Bill that would make him wake up screaming. 

Mabel understood at first. Their entire last week in Gravity Falls she was already awake when he bolted upright. Stan and Ford would be up the stairs in a matter of seconds. Half the time they ended up downstairs cuddled up in Stan's chair or, on one memorable occasion, all four of them in Stan's bed. They were all healing.

Then Dipper and Mabel went back to Piedmont, and Mabel was still understanding. He could tell she hadn't already been awake, but she'd do her best to pretend. She'd drag herself out of bed, bleary-eyed, and make him some warm milk. He could tell it was getting more difficult for her though. He tried to tell her to go back to bed, especially once school started. 

It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't every night. His parents were concerned, he heard whispers of getting him into therapy. That would do absoloutly no good to anyone. He wanted to find a solution, any solution, but the nightmares kept coming. 

The nightmare he woke from the morning he found the solution was worse than usual, as it wasn't quite what had really happened. Great-Uncle Ford missed his shot. The fleshy hole in the awful triangle's strangely terrifying hat sealed closed in an instant and, with force and mockery, the bell tower exploded. Ford's voice instructing him to run, but Bill was getting closer fast. Faster. Gold getting closer, that terrible eyeball closing in, the dark mass that passed for a hand closing in. 

Just as it reached to grip him, Dipper woke. There was a space then, between the sensation of his bed underneath his belly and the scream that had nearly torn from his throat. He'd always thought he was immobile in that space, because he could still feel the way the proximity of Bill's hand made goosebumps rise all down his back, and the menacing gaze of that eye. 

He had time though to think of Mabel. To think of school and his life and her life.

To decide that he wasn't going to let Bill hurt her anymore. 

He didn't have to move much, he just closed the distance between himself and his pillow, sealed his mouth around the edge and bit down hard. The scream came anyway, but it was muffled. He pushed harder into the pillow, raising his arms and pulling it into his face as he screamed again, and again. 

When he calmed enough to come out of the pillow, the sense of that malovelent presence gone, he turned to face his sister, hope rising in his chest.

She hadn't stirred. 

Dipper wiped the tears from his eyes and sniffed hard, then nodded to himself.

This was good, this was progress. .At least Mabel would have a good day today. At least she could get a good nights sleep. If nothing else, he could protect her. 

Content with that, Dipper rolled over, and let his eyes drift closed. 

He didn't fall asleep again. He just let his breathing go even and soft, and waited for dawn.


End file.
